Most sabermetric analyses of batting order find that the most optimal batting order is worth between five and 15 runs over a typical batting order. From this, it is often concluded that batting order isn’t very important. Is that the correct conclusion?
Few things are more frustrating than watching your team ground into a double play. This is FanGraphs, so you know what’s next: quantification. Who has hurt their team the most by grounding into double plays so far this season?*
*Although wOBA doesn’t include this, stats like RE24 and WPA/LI do (along with many other things). This posts isolates the run value of just the GiDPs.
John Walsh and others have written on this before, and I don’t have anything to add methodologically — I’m going with my own simple method using the Baseball-Reference table found here. To get the runs above and below average, we need to take into account not just rate, but opportunities (runner on first with less than two outs).
The rankings are based on runs above and below average. The linear weight run value of a GiDP varies from source to source, but for simplicity I’ll use .35, as listed in The Book (p 141), which is close to other values I’ve seen (for other issues, see this discussion). The 2010 league GiDP rate is 11% (as it is most seasons). To get the number of double plays above or below average, I’ve used a simple formula tweaked so that minus is “bad,” which is intuitive: player opportunities times league rate [11%] minus player GiDPs. I round this to a whole number, then multiply times 0.35 to see about how many runs a player has cost/gained his team below/above average. Enough boring methodology, let’s check out the hitters who have hurt their teams the most with the GiDP so far in 2010, ranked by runs below/above average.
[The numbers are GiDPS-opps, percentage grounded into, rounded number of GiDPS below average, and runs below average]
Three-way tie for third worst:
Wilson Valdez, 8-25, 32%, 5 below average, -1.75 runs
Carlos Lee, 9-38, 24%, 5 below average, -1.75 runs
Michael Cuddyer, 12-64, 19%, 5 below average, -1.75 runs
Valdez is a replacement-level scrub, so that isn’t that interesting, other than to see his amazing efforts in so little playing time. El Caballo has found yet another way to kill the Astros this season, even for him. Michael Cuddyer has been below average for his career, although 19% is his worst season in a while. He gets so far down the list because he hits fifth on the Twins batting order most nights, right behind two players currently sporting near-.400 and .500 on-base percentages (Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, respectively), so he gets plenty of chances.
There is also a three-way tie for second worst:
Pablo Sandoval, 12-54, 22%, 6 below average, -2.1 runs
Ivan Rodriguez, 10-32, 31%, 6 below average, -2.1 runs
Joe Mauer, 12-53, 23%, 6 below average, -2.1 runs
Kung Fu Panda isn’t hitting up to his usual standard so far this season, and that’s also true of his double play rate, as, perhaps a bit surprisingly, he hasn’t been that bad in previous seasons. We’ll have to see how things develop. Pudge Rodriguez, on the other hand, was a GiDP machine even in his pre-Zombie seasons. Fellow catcher Joe Mauer has a bit of a reputation for grounding into double plays, and while he has been slightly worse than average for his career, in 2009 he was actually a bit better than average. It is probably magnified because because he primarily hits third for the Twins, and as discussed in The Book, the third spot in the order sees the most double play situations, on average. Mauer is also interesting because, despite being a lefty (who tend to be better at avoiding the DP, more discussion of this on Friday), he might be more suspectible because he likes to go the other way, and also hits the ball on the ground at an above average rate. He’s still a great hitter, of course.
The worst so far in 2010:
Billy Butler, 13-53, 25%, 7 below average, -2.45 runs
After beginning to fulfill expectations at the plate in 2009 with a .369 wOBA, Butler is hitting even better in 2010: .337/.391/.483, .382 wOBA. But the double play has been an issue for Butler in the major leagues. Being a right-handed hitter has something to do with it, as does his, um, “speed.” Like Mauer, he also hits a lot of balls on the ground. Hitting third for the first part of the season and now fourth (in both cases usually behind David DeJesus‘ .374 OBP) probably has something to do with it.
In the case of good hitters like Mauer, Butler, and others who have a problem with the DP, is it worth moving them out of the middle of the order? This is one thing I’ll briefly discuss in Friday’s post, which will also list 2010’s best at avoiding the GiDP as well as some other trends.
In line with our Fabulous Split Week here at FanGraphs, this post will utilize the framework for estimating hitter platoon skill outlined on Monday. If you crave more details, read that post, or, even better, take a look at the sections from The Book on which it is based. Today, I’ll apply this analysis to four of the remaining DH-ish players left on the free agent market. This will allow us to set aside issues of defense and get a simple overview at how platoon skill effects the value of some hitters. Recalling Monday’s post, platoon skills are regressed to the mean (here based on league-wide splits 2007-2009), moreso for righties (regressed against 2200 PA) than for lefties (1000 PA).* For the projected overall wOBA, I use CHONE’s projections as listed on the FanGraphs player pages.
* David Appelman informs me that the “career splits” pages only include stats starting in 2002. That’s helpful in this case because we’re getting the more recent data for older players, although platoon skills usually don’t change much over most players’ careers. But keep in mind that the “career” numbers listed below are post-2002.
Let’s begin with some lefties:
Russell Branyan
Career Split: 15.2% (437 PA v LHP)
Regressed: 10.6%
CHONE projected wOBA: .359
Estimated wOBA vs. RHP: .367
Estimated wOBA vs. LHP: .329
Like most saber-nerds, I love talking about Russell Branyan. Although he has a platoon-guy rep, in 2009, when he got more PAs against LHP than ever before in his major-league career, he hit well against them (.345 wOBA). It’s still a small sample, but it does show that sometimes regression to the mean happens right before our eyes. Branyan actually projects as about league average vs. LHP. His back is problematic and he probably went into the off-season with unrealistic expectations about what he could get in free agency, but it’s hard to believe he won’t find a starting job before Opening Day.
Carlos Delgado
Career Split: 18.2% (1400 PA v LHP)
Regressed: 14.2%
CHONE projected wOBA: .337
Estimated wOBA vs. RHP: .352
Estimated wOBA vs. LHP: .304
In an earlier post on free agent 1B/DHes, I hinted that the once-great Delgado might want to consider hanging it up. But this is a case where a larger split makes a guy more valuable with a decent platoon partner.
Hank Blalock
Career Split: 21.8% (1060 PA v LHP)
Regressed: 15.4%
CHONE projected wOBA: .328
Estimated wOBA vs. RHP: .342
Estimated wOBA vs. LHP: .291
It may seem like Hank Blalock was good just a couple years ago, but it’s really been six. He has even a bigger splits than Delgado, but he’s also not as good of a hitter in general. A .342 wOBA part-time DH can be useful, but not often.
And now some righties…
Jermaine Dye
Career Split: 9.1% (1196 PA v LHP)
Regressed: 7.1%
CHONE projected wOBA: .345
Estimated wOBA vs. RHP: .338
Estimated wOBA vs. LHP: .363
Dye seems to have realized he can’t play the field anymore, which is good. Given how long he’s been in the league relative to Ryan Garko (discussed in Monday’s post), that their estimated split is almost exactly the same points to how much observed RHH platoon splits need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Johny Gomes
Career Split: 15.4% (600 PA v LHP)
Regressed: 8.1%
CHONE projected wOBA: .336
Estimated wOBA vs. RHP: .327
Estimated wOBA vs. LHP: .354
Now this is a righty with a big split, although not as big as people think. Despite Gomes’ reputation, his estimated platoon split isn’t any bigger than the average lefty split. Of course, he’s only about average against RHP.
This small selection reflects what we’d generally expect — lefties have larger splits that vary more widely. This implies that when setting up a platoon, given similar defensive skills (or lack thereof), the key is finding a lefty with a big split, and to find a RHH who is a decent overall hitter. And, of course, there’s the issue of whether bringing in a platoon partner is worth the roster spot. For example, given that the expected performance of Gomes and Dye (the lesser half of the platon) vs. LHP isn’t that much better than Branyan’s overall projection. On the other hand, on the right team, Gomes or Dye + Delgado might make sense.